IRS says charity volunteers may deduct qualifying travel costs

Driving a Green Bag route, hauling donations to a pantry partner or showing up for a community event can do more than cost time and gas. The Internal Revenue Service says volunteers for a qualified charity may deduct certain unreimbursed travel costs, but only when the trip is tied directly to the service, not to a side vacation or personal errand.

The agency’s charity-travel tip sheet lists air, rail and bus fares, car expenses, lodging, some meals and taxi rides between the airport or station and the hotel as potentially deductible. Publication 526 says the work has to be real and substantial throughout the trip, with no significant element of personal pleasure, recreation or vacation. The volunteer’s time itself is not deductible. Publication 463 points readers back to Publication 526 and says volunteer workers for a qualified charity may be able to deduct some out-of-pocket costs as a charitable contribution. The current Publication 526 page was last reviewed on April 2, 2026.

That guidance hits close to home for A Simple Gesture, where many volunteers use their own cars to keep the food-recovery network moving. The nonprofit says it has operated in Guilford County since 2015 and that volunteer drivers collect donations right from donors’ doorsteps. Its Food Recovery page says volunteers use a clean personal car for pickups and deliveries, a setup that puts gas, tolls, parking and mileage records squarely in the volunteer’s lap. The organization’s volunteer pages also list Saturday Green Bag pickups, community events, weekday food-recovery driving, the SHARE program and the Refugee Feeding Network.

The scale of that work explains why a small tax rule can matter. As of December 2025, A Simple Gesture said it had surpassed 8,000,000 child-size meals donated, $13,000,000 in donated food value, 75-plus pantry partners, 3,900-plus recurring food donors and 200 monthly volunteers. It also says its food-recovery work rescues edible food from businesses and delivers it to local nonprofits, while its food programs include Green Bag donations, Food Recovery and SHARE refrigerators in Guilford County Schools.

For staff and coordinators, the practical lesson is simple: make reimbursement rules, mileage logs and receipt habits easy to understand from the start. When volunteers know what the IRS allows, they are less likely to leave money on the table and more likely to keep showing up for the routes that keep A Simple Gesture’s pickup system reliable.